


Carry Me Home

by hitlikehammers



Series: No End To This Thing [5]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: 'Til the end of the line, (And Takes Care of His Stevie), And So Very Much Love, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Returns, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers, Captain America: Civil War Fix-It, Codependency, Credits Scene Fix-It, Emotional Catharsis (of the Long-Overdue Variety), Emotional Sex, Feelings, Fix-It, Frottage, Hurt Steve Rogers, M/M, Protective Bucky Barnes, Requited Love, Saving Steve Rogers from Himself, So Very Many Feelings and Other Such Emotive Things, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers Has Issues, Supersoldiers in Love, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-06
Updated: 2016-05-06
Packaged: 2018-06-06 15:28:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6759565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hitlikehammers/pseuds/hitlikehammers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“The only choice I will ever make, from this moment on,” Bucky frames Steve’s face, and holds every tear from those eyes against his fingertips, lets them soak into the whorls just to hold Steve that little bit deeper under his skin; “is to be wherever you are. If that’s what you want—”</p><p>“That’s what I want,” Steve gasps, and the feel of him, the weight of him is the weight of absolution, and a line that doesn’t end. “<i>God</i>,” Steve chokes, trembling: </p><p>“That’s <i>all</i> I want.”</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>  <b>SPOILERS FOR CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR.</b><br/><b><i>**First Post-CW Credits Scene Fix-It of the Larger Fix-It Series <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/6693928">HERE</a>**</i></b><br/><span class="small">Sequel to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/6751228">Feel Strength From These Hands</a> (and posted just now to celebrate the US film release), because oh, if we’re talking about Steve healing, post-Civil War? You didn’t <i>really</i> think that was a single-fic’s worth of a project, did you? (And if it’s <i>Bucky</i> helping him to heal, did we really <i>want</i> it to be just a single-fic’s worth of a project?)</span></p>
            </blockquote>





	Carry Me Home

**Author's Note:**

> And now, to celebrate the US release of the film in question in these fics: the sequel to [Feel Strength From These Hands](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6751228), and ostensibly the last bit of this series, except I’m apparently really susceptible to suggestions about schmoopy, porny epilogues/final instalments. Woe is me, to be so open to swaying. *glances meaningfully at [weepingnaiad](http://archiveofourown.org/users/weepingnaiad)*
> 
> Title credit [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxvBzlnZES0).

“On the bed.”

They’re in a hotel—and it’s a nice hotel, the kind where questions aren’t asked not because no one gives a shit this far outta dodge, but because there’s considerable money involved, courtesy of his friends in Wakanda helping him acquire some long-overdue back-pay for services rendered, on fucking _principle_ —and maybe Bucky’s dreamt of this in different circumstances, in a different world, a different life: maybe Bucky wishes his command was given with heat rather than lingering worry.

But Steve doesn’t hesitate. Steve’s eyes, Steve’s body betray how it transports him: how it sounds the same to him as _On the counter, punk_ , or _Up on the table, clear a space_ , the same meaning after every scrape in this back alley or that empty street: Steve turns, and strips his clothes to his briefs, and Bucky can read in Steve’s body language how in his own mind, he’s suddenly small again. And Bucky feels a twisting in his chest for all the things he suspects still bang around inside of Steve that never learned how to live in this strange new world because they didn’t have the time, because _he_ didn’t have the time, or the space, or the freedom to fall down in the trying.

And Bucky’s body remembers this: not this body, exactly, tending to exactly _this_ body, but that’s irrelevant in some ways, at least—in _this_ way, because it’s something written deeper than how big their muscles are or how many times his mind’s been scrambled and scraped against the dirt: this is a thing he was made for, from the beginning of anything at all, and so he starts with Steve’s face, turns him side to side with firm hands against his jaw, his cheeks; tilts his head up to check the neck, the throat, the clavicle—bruises quickly fading, but still a stone in the pit of Bucky’s stomach, a fist on his heart for being there at all.

His hands move to Steve’s chest, and suddenly, the familiarity gains urgency. He knows the rise and fall of lungs and the measure of a pulse, things he knows beyond field training or necessity or maintenance of a weapon: he knows with every cell in him what that heart has felt like on the edge of death, flirting but never dancing, _not the right partner, you bastard, go on and steal some dimmer soul from this earth you hateful fuck_ —and Bucky pauses, his own heart skipping when he feels Steve’s slamming viciously against his ribs, and it takes a terrifying moment to remember that it won’t kill Steve; that this isn’t that kind of an end.

But Bucky keeps his eyes on the fully-closed hole in Steve’s side, biting at his tongue until he thinks he can breathe, and never moving his hand from where it rests over Steve’s frantic heartbeat, because fuck: Steve’s heart might not be fit to give out in Bucky’s hands, just now, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a different sort of end, the end for _Bucky’s_ heart, and he thinks: a warrior knows.

 _A warrior knows his own heart._

And he’s come this fucking _far_.

“Steve?”

His voice doesn’t sound like him, but somehow it’s more his own than maybe it’s ever been, his trembling pulse thick in the cadence, conducting how that name shivers on his tongue. 

“Yeah, Buck?”

Steve’s voice, if nothing else, is steady, so giving: ready to do whatever’s asked.

God, but Bucky doesn’t deserve him.

But then Bucky’s learned: no one in this world ever gets what they deserve.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Anything,” Steve breathes, and the vibration of it is deep in his chest, comes from the humming of the blood that pumps and gives besides, and he means it.

Bucky swallows. Now or never. 

He’s taken steeper leaps; never once a bigger risk.

“Is this because of me,” he presses just a little firmer on Steve’s chest, holds that heart unoffered as gently as he can, because he knows what it means to have a pulse race _because_ of him, because of what he is; he’s watched blood spurt wild from severed arteries for the sheer force of what _terror_ looks like when it’s unleashed from the vein; he _knows_ what it means for a heart to pummel itself against the threat of the things that he’s done—

No.

No, because there were things that happened. He was used to make them happen. But he is not those things. His _soul_ is not that threat, would never _think_ to do any of the things he still sees behind his eyes at night.

He knows that now. He is not the terror. That is not _his_ heart.

“Is this, are you,” Bucky tries again, breathes deep but can’t quite sort his thoughts, can’t quite speak for just how much is at stake; just how much this _means_.

“Is it _because_ of me,” Bucky finally says, looking up and meeting Steve’s eyes, trying to convey what’s running through his head, what’s separating fear of harm from fear of _want_ , and force of _need_ , and the sheer terror of ruining what’s only just resurfaced in his world, only just rekindled in his chest and gilded the heart he gave a lifetime ago, and never wanted back because it wasn’t meant for anyone else; it wasn’t meant for any _thing_ else.

“Or,” and Bucky almost can’t say it, no breath left for his lungs to hold, the hammer of his blood too demanding, thrashing the air from him as he ventures the impossible, because he is alive, and he is free, and Steve’s heart is under his hand, and miracles apparently abound, so why the fuck not one more?

“Or is it _for_ me?”

And Bucky waits, watches Steve’s eyes for any tell beyond the widening that could herald either extreme, either of the unnameable, unspeakable possibilities: that Steve fears him, or is disgusted by him, or god, _god_ —if there is a god somewhere that’s kept them both breathing this long, or chance, or fate, but _god_ , what if Steve does want, if Steve feels even a fraction of what he is to Bucky, of the way he means and makes up _light_ —

“Buck,” and suddenly, Steve’s hand is pressed over Bucky’s, pressed closer to the bird’s-wing flutter under skin that doesn’t ebb; suddenly, Steve’s eyes don’t blink, and they stare into Bucky as he licks his lips, as he tenses on his own ledge to leap.

“Buck, it’s only _ever_ been for you.”

And Bucky didn’t think he had any wires left, any strings to pull or cut: but apparently that’s what his heart’s been hanging from, waiting forever in vain until this moment, until this impossible fucking _moment_ when everything snaps and the force of the falling drives him forward, drives his hands from Steve’s chest to his arms, to his back to draw him in as Bucky pulls him close, and doesn’t hesitate to claim Steve’s lips.

He gasps around the kind of sob that would shatter the world, if it wasn’t made into that willing mouth, as Steve kisses him with the sort of longing that could kill them both in a touch.

But _oh_ : it sets them on fire, and lesser men might have burned away, but not them. Not like this.

Steve tastes like the last days of summer. Steve feels like dizziness, euphoria, vertigo, but inside every sigh and cell.

“I was afraid,” Bucky gasps into his mouth, hands roaming every inch of Steve he can reach, arms tangling with Steve’s own as the other man seems to attempt the same feat. “I was so fucking afraid that you didn’t—”

And Steve leans, rolls his body to take Bucky’s mouth, to suck Bucky’s tongue between his teeth and consume him, cutting that thought off at the legs: devouring that fear with something brighter, bigger—more than either one of them.

Something that makes Bucky’s chest hurt for the endless way it moves his lungs, pumps his blood.

“It nearly killed me,” Steve gasps, presses into Bucky’s skin with his lips; “it nearly stopped the heart in my chest then and there to watch it, to watch _you_ ,” and Bucky tastes the salt of Steve’s tears like penance received and offered in deference all at once; Bucky arches forward to press his body full against Steve’s own just for the feel of it, just for the sake of proving that they’re here, that they’re _here_ —

“And then to _leave_ ,” Steve gasps, rolling his hips against Bucky’s in earnest: for the friction, yes, but Bucky can feel the current that overtakes momentum, the sheer need to prove life and love and the force of gravity, the magnetic poles that are just them two: one to the other, forever.

“But it was your _choice_ , and how long had it been since you’d even had one?” Steve’s panting as they move frantic against each other; Bucky still mostly clothed to so much of Steve’s bare skin, but it doesn’t matter: they’re exposed entirely where it counts; there are no more secrets left to hide, only to discover when space opens up between them once again as it has to, as the world requires it to function and spin, but not now.

Not now.

“And if your choice took you from me, who was _I_ —”

“The only choice I will ever make, from this moment on,” Bucky frames Steve’s face, and holds every tear from those eyes against his fingertips, lets them soak into the whorls just to have Steve that little bit deeper into his system, under his skin; “is to be wherever you are. If that’s what you want—”

“That’s what I want,” Steve gasps, and the feel of him, the weight of him through layers is the weight of absolution, and a line that doesn’t end. 

“God, _god_ ,” Steve chokes, trembling, and they’re both so close, and quick, just for the knowledge, the tangible fact of their want, the syncopation of breath and blood and feeling: “That’s all I want.”

“Stevie,” Bucky groans, and he peaks heavy and hard, and loves every second of warmth when Steve follows him over, Bucky’s hand slipping past his waistband to ease Steve through, to make it _more_ as he murmurs: 

“My _Stevie_.”

And Steve just keeps saying his name, just keeps touching him, just keeps gasping for air like the world’s ending but the way he cards his fingers and twines his grasp in Bucky’s hair is wholly present, possessive, begging for something unnamable and yet, between them, so very much understood.

Yet, by the time they’ve caught their breaths between two sets of lips, barely daring to pull apart, enraptured and enthralled and finally _here_ beyond all reason or odds, Steve doesn’t seem to settle. Steve doesn’t seem to ease into the boneless satisfaction of what it means to let the burden go, to know a heart’s returned, that love was never given without it pressed back tenfold, and with the fervor of wholeness at its core.

No, instead: there’s an urgency, a desperation, a fear in him that’s aimed at losing that is so plain and clear to see that Bucky can’t imagine no one’s called it out, no one’s stepped in to make it right—he can’t imagine, and yet.

Here they are.

“How long?” Bucky finally breathes into Steve’s hair, pressing kisses across the crown of his head as Steve burrows further into Bucky’s chest, away from the question, away from saying it aloud and making it real: Bucky knows him.

Bucky _still knows_ him.

“How long since you were okay?” Bucky asks him again; no judgement, no pity, just so much feeling in him that it spills and falls from his words, oil-slick and technicolored. “How long has it been since you felt safe enough to let the fuck _go_?”

And Steve shivers at just the words, the mere mention, and oh: they’ve both been lost for decades, haven’t they? And Bucky can live with his own torment, has fought like hell to overcome, but Stevie: they broke Steve in order to make him, and Bucky hadn’t been able to help before he fell; Bucky hadn’t been able to put him back together before he was gone, and then, then—

Oh, but Steve’s been walking around in pieces for _years_ , exposed in all the cracks and holes, bleeding out in ways the serum can’t help, but that Bucky can still see on him here, now: in the right light, with his soul flayed wide.

Bucky’s heart goddamn _hurts_ for it.

“I,” Steve starts, and then turns closer into Bucky’s hold; Bucky just tightens his arms around those big shoulders: too big. Too tempting to lay the world upon them, and forget.

To leave that weight there, and break those shoulders and the man they belong to all the more.

God _damnit_.

“Tell me, Stevie,” Bucky nuzzles into his hair, whispers into his ear; “please.”

Steve’s pulse skips beneath Bucky’s lips at his temple as he draws a shaky breath, confesses:

“Brooklyn.”

Bucky’s head spins; his breath catches.

“ _Jesus_.” 

And all he knows, all he can even _fathom_ to do is just hold onto Steve like a touchstone, like the last scrap of land, the last foothold on the cliffside: precious beyond reason, the only form of life left to grasp in all world.

“I’m gonna take care of you, now,” Bucky breathes against him, and means it with every heavy pump of his heart against Steve’s ear.

“Buck,” Steve breathes, soft, dismissive where it sends a shudder down Bucky’s spine for the way it hits his skin; “you—”

“You’ve always thought this was a thing like a barter,” Bucky slowly turns Steve over, so they’re chest to chest; eye to eye. “A transaction, like you owed something to deserve care and love, even before we, this,” he gestures between them, and kisses Steve’s top lip swift and full with meaning. 

“It’s _not_ , and it ain’t never _been_ like that,” he says with all the passion he feels for this man in his arms, with all the need to keep him, with all the desire to fit all his scattered pieces back into a shape that feels _right_ , that lets Steve close his eyes at night and lie in Bucky’s hold and know some _peace_.

Because if Bucky can manage some modicum of that impossible thing, then god _damn_ , Steve can, too.

And Steve _will_ ; Bucky will see it through or finally die in the attempt, because there’s not a damn thing he’s ever fought for that was worth more than Steve.

“I want to take care of you because it gets tight in my chest when I watch you suffer,” Bucky strokes Steve’s cheek, and feels his whole body light up, rise in something near rapture as Steve leans into that touch like he’s starved for it, like Bucky saves him just for _being_ , and no, no: that’s backwards.

But Bucky’s gonna take it and let himself shine with it for as long as that shine wants to stay.

“Let me take care of you,” Bucky murmurs, nudging Steve with the tip of his nose gently, and suddenly, it comes together: this is the heart he was seeking, yes.

But _this_ is the last of the battles that he sought out to fight. This is the last dragon here for him to slay.

“Will you _let_ me take care of you?”

And where Steve had torn and cracked before, he spills over, splits open, and starts to sob in earnest against Bucky’s chest where Bucky just holds him close, just breathes his air: just breathes, like he used to, in hope that it’s enough for both of them.

“Don’t leave me,” Steve whispers, plaintive and single-minded with it; needing so much and not yet understanding what’s always been at the core of what he is to Bucky: of how he never needs to ask, and how Bucky’d never leave if the choice was his, because to leave Steve is to die slowly—nothing less. 

“Please, don’t leave me ever again, I don’t think I’m,” Steve starts to gasp, starts to shake; “I couldn’t, I—”

He looks up, eyes streaming, and speaks straight to Bucky’s soul:

“I don’t think I’m strong enough to let you go any more.”

“You’ll never have to be,” Bucky frames his face, thumbs at the pulse on the sides of his neck. “You’ll never have to let me go. And you’ll never have to be strong enough for _anything_ on your own ever again, Steve.” He kisses Steve’s lips with the sweetest sense of promise he thinks he’s ever known. “Because I’ll be right there with you.”

Steve whimpers, and ducks his head to the hollow of Bucky’s throat where he nods, over and over again, like his own affirmation will make it more true.

“We’re gonna make it through this,” Bucky exhales soft against him, hands splayed now against Steve’s shoulder blades, drawing him close once more. “We’re gonna come out the other side here as something more solid, more real and whole than we ever thought we could be.”

He bows his head against Steve, then, and makes them into a single form, makes it a test and a task and a trial to untangle them, so that the world knows they’re in this for the long haul, they’re in this inextricably: a single heart that was given and was never asked for back.

Bucky breathes, and holds Steve close, and knows his own heart for the first time in too long; thinks of growing things, and stillness, and quiet, and calm—and he knows where to begin their mending.

“We’ll make it through, Stevie,” he squeezes Steve’s hand, and kisses his brow. And his conviction, his wisdom is lacking compared to the man who said the words to him, but his heart is full, and his soul is light, and there is nothing he won’t do for this man that he loves, and that’s gotta count for something. So he says it anyway:

“I _believe_ this.”

Because fuck _all_ , but he and Steve: _they_ damn well _do_ count. 

They count for _everything_.

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr](http://hitlikehammers.tumblr.com).


End file.
